Intellectual and Viewpoint Diversity: Importance, Scope and Bounds

Abstract

In recent decades, the ideological diversity of faculties in the United States has declined considerably, and this has arguably had implications for a number of other aspects of academic life. Efforts to promote intellectual and viewpoint diversity are, however, often met with skepticism, and also with reasonable concerns over threats to the autonomy and integrity of academic disciplines and institutions. Clarifying the role, scope, and bounds of intellectual and viewpoint diversity within academic life in ways that respect the scholarly standards of disciplines is thus of critical importance. The role of, and concerns surrounding, intellectual diversity and viewpoint diversity are, moreover, not identical. In this paper, I put forward definitions for intellectual diversity and viewpoint diversity, along with related notions of ideological and political diversity. Data are presented on the decline of ideological and political diversity among faculties, along with evidence concerning the possible causes for this decline. I then present arguments for the importance of intellectual and viewpoint diversity in the pursuit of knowledge, in the transmission of that knowledge to students, and in its dissemination and application to broader society. I put forward proposals for educational leaders, faculty, and students for engaging with or, when appropriate, cultivating intellectual and viewpoint diversity in a manner that respects the scholarly standards of disciplines. I discuss what is at stake with these matters in the present context concerning the nature of the university itself, and its purposes in the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge.

1. Introduction

Notions of intellectual and viewpoint diversity have recently been receiving increasing attention within higher education, but have also often been met with controversy and skepticism (AAUP, 2003; Fish, 2004; Orzeck, 2012; Applebaum, 2020; Kammer, 2020; Dotson, 2020; Siraganian, 2025; Hummels & Akridge, 2025; Tomasi & Haidt, 2025). Reasonable concerns have been expressed over more politically motivated uses of such notions that might compromise the autonomy and integrity of academic disciplines and institutions (Fish, 2004; Whitmore, 2008; Wilson, 2019; Kammer, 2020; Siraganian, 2025). Clarifying the role, scope, and bounds of matters of intellectual and viewpoint diversity within academic life, and how to potentially make use of such diversity in ways that facilitate teaching and scholarship, is of critical importance. Given the concerns and controversies, greater precision on these matters is needed. While the terms “intellectual diversity” and “viewpoint diversity” are sometimes used almost interchangeably, the relevance and role of and concerns surrounding each are arguably distinct.

In this paper, I will propose definitions of “intellectual diversity” and “viewpoint diversity,” and of related notions of political and ideological diversity. I will present empirical evidence for a notable decline of ideological diversity within academic institutions in the United States over the past several decades, and comment upon the evidence concerning the causes of this decline. I will review arguments for the role, and potential importance, of intellectual and viewpoint diversity in a university fulfilling its purposes of the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge. Doing so will also lead to considerations of the appropriate limits and bounds concerning efforts to promote the presence of, or exposure to, various forms of intellectual or viewpoint diversity in ways that facilitate teaching and scholarship. And this will in turn lead to discussion of what might constitute reasonable approaches to addressing intellectual and viewpoint diversity that do not compromise the academic autonomy and integrity of disciplines. I will address questions of viewpoint diversity within classroom teaching and pedagogical approaches that may increase awareness of and exposure to viewpoint diversity, and then turn to the perhaps more difficult question of intellectual diversity and faculty representation. I will conclude with some reflections on the current situation many colleges and universities are at present facing and what is at stake in these matters. The paper thus moves from concepts to empirical data to conceptual arguments to potential proposals to policy.

With regard to methodology, the section on ideological diversity is principally empirical. Data are from diverse sources on diverse questions and not amenable to meta-analysis. An attempt was made to include discussion of the largest studies within the United States. Considerable emphasis is placed on the data from Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Faculty Survey (Stolzenberg et al., 2019), which many consider the strongest and most reliable data source, having been conducted over three decades with data on over half a million faculty respondents. However, the discussion of that data is supplemented by that from other large studies. While no one study is definitive, the cumulative evidence I will argue is considerable. The sections on the role of intellectual and viewpoint diversity and proposals to potentially cultivate these will be principally grounded in conceptual argument. However, in those sections, I will occasionally also provide support from empirical data, and also illustrate the ideas with particular examples.

The commentary is not intended as an analysis of all of the challenges being faced by higher education today, but will be restricted here to matters pertaining to intellectual and viewpoint diversity, and their relation to the pursuit of knowledge. In the present political context, one might reasonably think that the most substantial threats to university life today are those from external government pressure, or from other sources. While these other challenges within higher education will not be the focus of the present paper, the paper’s concluding section will return to some of these matters and will attempt to situate questions of intellectual and viewpoint diversity within the contemporary political context. However, even there, it will be argued that at least some, though certainly not all, of the current external threats have in fact arisen precisely because of the lack of ideological and viewpoint diversity. The discussion here will be principally focused on the United States. Similar dynamics may well be at play in other countries also, but a more detailed analysis within each country would be needed to provide adequate context, since political, ideological, and intellectual particularities will of course vary considerably by country. However, the proposals that will be put forward for autonomously expanding intellectual and viewpoint diversity would arguably be applicable across a range of contexts and countries.

While many of the examples are drawn from the fields of psychology, public health, and law, where there has been more substantial engagement with these topics (Rosenkranz, 2014; Dent, 2014; Paulsen, 2014; George, 2014; Duarte et al., 2015; Phillips, 2016; Stanovich & Toplak, 2019; C. J. Clark et al., 2022; VanderWeele, 2023b; Flanigan, 2024), the issues and principles arguably apply more generally across fields (cf. Yancey, 2011; Brown, 2023). I will in each case put forward principles that I believe would enable better engagement with intellectual and viewpoint diversity in ways that advance understanding and knowledge, while also respect the scholarly and disciplinary standards of academic inquiry to provide appropriate bounds (cf. AAUP, 2003; Fish, 2004; Kammer, 2020). In the advancement of knowledge, not all views are equal in merit or have equal evidence; nor is time unlimited, and decisions must be made as to what to prioritize or teach. It is critical then both to understand the importance of intellectual and viewpoint diversity, as well as when it has been inappropriately neglected, but also to have an understanding of its appropriate scope and limits within academic contexts. Ultimately, I will argue that intellectual and viewpoint diversity should be considered not as an end, but as an important means for the pursuit of knowledge (Fish, 2004; Paulsen, 2014).

My focus here will be principally upon what universities can, and arguably should, themselves do to promote academically productive forms of intellectual and viewpoint diversity, rather than on attempts to externally force such diversity, i.e., on internal reform rather than external imposition (cf. Garry, 2019; Lauck, 2019; Whittington, 2024). I will briefly comment on the creation of new institutions, schools, and centers, but, once established, many of the same principles concerning their faculty, teaching and autonomy would then also apply. While much has been written on this topic in the past decade (cf. Paulsen, 2014; Dent, 2014; Duarte et al., 2015; Alexander, 2016; J. A. Shields & Dunn Sr, 2016; Whittington, 2021; Honeycutt, 2024b), much of that has concerned the problem itself, and more work is needed on practical approaches to address these issues. The present contribution is thus intended as a commentary on prior studies, with the aim of pointing towards potential proposals. The contribution of the present paper is both synthesis of this past work and also advancing the discussion of reasonable proposals concerning addressing matters of intellectual and viewpoint diversity in ways that preserve, and indeed even promote, the autonomy, integrity, and mission of academic institutions and disciplines.

2. Concepts and Definitions

In many discussions, the terms “intellectual diversity,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “ideological diversity” seem to be used almost interchangeably, and sometimes each of these terms is equated with matters of “political diversity” (Kammer, 2020). In the discussion that follows it will be helpful to distinguish these notions since the role that each plays in teaching, in scholarship, and in university’s service to society is arguably distinct. I would thus propose the following definitions. A viewpoint itself I would take to be a particular position concerning a matter of intellectual or societal importance. Viewpoint diversity might be defined as the range and distribution of viewpoints and particular beliefs that are present and engaged with within a given context. Under this understanding, multiple elements of viewpoint diversity may be considered. There is both the matter of the range of views, but also the distribution of those views. The range of views may be very broad, even in settings in which the vast majority hold a particular position so that the distribution is quite concentrated. As discussed below, this may be important in leveraging existing viewpoint diversity in classroom settings. Additionally, there is both the question of what beliefs and viewpoints are held by those in a particular academic setting, but also the question of what range and distribution of views are engaged with in that setting. In principle, these two aspects might be quite different. The expression “viewpoint diversity” is sometimes used, as here, as a description of the extent of that diversity, and is sometimes used in other contexts as the state of having attained a notable degree of diversity. The proposed definition of viewpoint diversity also concerns a given context. One might consider matters of viewpoint diversity with respect to a given course, or with respect to a particular department, or school, or a university as a whole. Similar remarks pertain to other forms of diversity discussed below. However, viewpoint diversity, as defined here, would concern the content of the views themselves.

Whereas viewpoint diversity concerns the range and distribution of views held in a given context regarding a particular question, issue, or controversy, I would understand intellectual diversity as being concerned with not simply particular views, but with the intellect of a person, and, by extension, entire systems of thought. Intellectual diversity might thus be defined as the range and distribution of systems of thought held by persons or systematically presented within a given academic context. Thus understood, intellectual diversity, having as its object various systems of thought held by or considered by the intellect, is more focused upon persons and the whole range of a person’s views, along with their interrelations. The distinction with viewpoint diversity is relevant because while it may be relatively straightforward for someone to present and consider arguments for and against a particular viewpoint when he or she does not embrace it, it is more challenging, though not impossible, to do so with regard to an entire system of thought.

Ideological diversity might be defined as intellectual diversity pertaining to ideology, where ideology itself might be understood as coordinated systems of beliefs as to how society ought to be. Understood thus, ideological diversity is a subset of intellectual diversity. For instance, the range and distribution of interpretations of quantum mechanics, or of intuitionist versus formalist views on the foundation of mathematics, would arguably constitute forms of intellectual or viewpoint diversity, but not of ideological diversity. In terms of its content, intellectual diversity is the broader notion as it includes matters of the intellect that extend beyond ideology (cf. Nesbit et al., 2011; Kellogg, 2014; Kammer, 2020; Tarafdar et al., 2022).

Political diversity I would define as the range and distribution, within a given context, of party affiliations, along with the sets of commitments and views concerning local, national, and international government. There is of course considerable conceptual overlap among these terms. Political diversity concerning views would constitute a particular form of viewpoint diversity. In the case of a set of coordinated political views, political diversity would constitute a form of ideological and intellectual diversity. Political diversity concerning affiliation may correspond to forms of intellectual, viewpoint, and ideological diversity, but may simply indicate an all-things-considered preference, partially reflective of but possibly less specifically tied to particular intellectual views. The terms “ideological diversity” and “political diversity” are sometimes used interchangeably but, as defined here, have different scope. Ideological diversity might extend to understandings of culture or religious beliefs which potentially extend beyond politics.

Intellectual and viewpoint diversity are very broad concepts, extending essentially to the whole of human thought, and are thus effectively impossible to fully characterize (Dotson, 2020; Kammer, 2020). Dotson (2020), for example, reasonably suggests that “intellectual diversity… degrades into either infinite particularity or impossible singularity.” Kammer (2020) notes that properly understood, the most relevant forms of intellectual diversity will vary across discipline. The terrain that intellectual diversity covers is thus vast.

Political diversity and certain forms of ideological diversity are often easier to characterize and measure. Such measures, especially when restricted to party affiliation, are imperfect. However, because they are easier to assess, it is often such measures for which data are available. In practice, political diversity concerning affiliation is generally assessed by party membership. Ideological diversity concerning views and commitments has sometimes been assessed on a liberal-to-conservative spectrum. As imperfect as these measures are, they are also reasonably strongly correlated with other views on a whole range of matters (Rempala et al., 2016; Pew Research Center, 2017). For convenience, I will refer to liberal versus conservative identity as pertaining to “ideological diversity”, acknowledging that it is only one form of ideological diversity, though it is itself constitutive of and reflective of broader intellectual diversity; and I will refer to party affiliation as pertaining to “political diversity”, while once again acknowledging that there is overlap in these concepts.

It should also be noted that particular individuals may of course have different views and different political and ideological leanings on different topics. Someone may view themselves as economically conservative and socially liberal, or vice versa. Someone may be drawn to the agenda of one party on a particular issue, but to another party on a different issue. There are also differences between liberals and progressives, and between libertarians and conservatives, and yet further more nuanced distinctions, e.g., between paleo-conservatives, neo-conservative, the religious right, the alt right, etc. Simply using party affiliation or the conservative-to-liberal spectrum has the downside of obscuring all such nuances. These crude measures also have the downside of potentially giving rise to a sense of “tribalism,” a matter to which I will return to at the end of this essay. However, as crude and unsatisfactory as these measures are, given their strong correlations with a whole range of views, along with their relative ease of assessment and the potential relevance across a range of contexts and disciplines, their use does tell us at least something of the broader considerations of intellectual diversity.

In the next section, I will present evidence for declining ideological and political diversity within universities in the United States. As just noted, while such measures are imperfect, they nevertheless likely also indicate declining intellectual diversity on a host of other matters, the implications of which will be considered in subsequent sections. However, in subsequent sections, especially as concerns teaching, faculty, and scholarship, we will be able to return to more nuanced issues of intellectual and viewpoint diversity, rather than cruder assessments of ideological and political diversity, and to discuss more tailored considerations across different academic disciplines. While the measures of ideological and political diversity are crude, they are typically what we have, and they are arguably sufficiently compelling that they ought to be taken seriously. Moreover, later this essay, I will also turn to considerations of the dissemination of knowledge, of trust, and of the university’s service to society and here too I think these issues concerning the cruder measures of ideological and political diversity are also relevant. In any case, let us now turn to the data over time.

3. The Decline of Ideological and Political Diversity

3.1. Data on Decline of Ideological Diversity

The empirical data suggest a notable decline in ideological diversity in American academic institutions over the past decades. Perhaps the most compelling data come from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Faculty Survey (Stolzenberg et al., 2019). The HERI Faculty Survey is a multi-purpose survey of faculty at a diverse range of institutions which, over three decades starting in 1978, was administered every three years, with collected data on over half a million faculty responses at more than 1100 colleges and universities. S. Abrams and Khalid (2020) use the data to report on changes in the ideological composition of American faculty members. They note that in 1989 HERI data, the liberal-to-conservative ratio of faculty was 2.3, but that by 2016–2017, the ratio had more than doubled to 5. Honeycutt (2024b) reports results from a more recent survey using data from 2021–2022 of 8167 faculty at 186 public and 181 private universities suggesting that the liberal-to-conservative ratio has increased yet further still, with that data now indicating a ratio of 6.9. The data of Honeycutt (2024b) also indicate the largest liberal-to-conservative ratio is among assistant professors, suggesting that these ratios are likely positioned to increase yet further in the years ahead, as later cohorts of faculty retire. There is also considerable variation in these ratios by discipline, by geography, and by institution (Langbert, 2018; S. J. Abrams, 2016; Honeycutt, 2024b). For example, using the prior wave of HERI data from 2014, S. J. Abrams (2016) reports that the liberal-to-conservative ratio was approximately 3-to-1 in the southeast and Midwest, 6-to-1 on the West coast, and 28-to-1 in New England. Similar statistics also pertain to party membership, which likewise also vary by discipline. Langbert (2018) examines political party membership using a sample of 8688 professors at fifty-one top-ranked institutions by the U.S. News and World Report and notes that Democrat-to-Republican ratios range from 1.6:1 in engineering to 70:1 or higher in religion and communications. Langbert and Stevens (2022) note similar variation across a smaller range of disciplines. Among 12,372 faculty at institutions highly ranked by U.S. News and World Report, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans ranged from 3:1 in economics to a high of 42:1 in anthropology.

It should be noted that the response rates of these surveys are fairly low, as is generally the case with faculty surveys, and may be biased. However, given the dramatic shifts in these estimates from 1989 to 2022, it seems unlikely that this can be explained simply by changes in non-response patterns. Other surveys, using different questions and methodology, likewise suggest similar results. J. Shields (2018) reports that in a study of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, in 1969 a quarter of American professors described themselves as right of center; in 1999, when the Carnegie Foundation ran the survey again, the proportion had dropped to 12 percent; and recent surveys now place that figure in the single digits. Duarte et al. (2015) present compelling evidence from multiple sources of a dramatically increasing shift to the left in psychology. There is no one study that is definitive, but the cumulative weight of the evidence, along with the changes over time, make a compelling case that whatever the precise liberal-to-conservative ratio currently is, it is fairly large, and it has been increasing notably over time.

3.2. Causes of the Decline

There are likely multiple causes for the relatively large liberal-to-conservative ratios, and for their increase over time. Duarte et al. (2015) consider evidence within the field of psychology but many of their results are probably broadly applicable and indeed are discussed also in Whittington (2021) concerning the academy at large. In considering possible explanations, Duarte et al. (2015) and Whittington (2021) both argue that evidence does not support the hypothesis that differences in intelligence explain the large ratio. Duarte et al. (2015) suggests evidence for three causes for the large liberal-to-conservative ratios in psychology: (i) self-selection into the academic profession, (ii) a hostile environment for conservative academics and (iii) discrimination against conservative academics. Whittington (2021) likewise discusses and presents evidence for all three. We will consider each in turn, along with a further cause concerning shifting demographics in the proportion of the population that identifies as liberal.

The evidence for the first mechanism of self-selection in part concerns the personality trait of “openness” associated both with liberal political orientation and choice to pursue advanced degrees and an academic career (Duarte et al., 2015). Conservatively-minded students may moreover choose more professionally oriented fields of study or pursuits (Whittington, 2021; Teles, 2024). It may also be the case that self-selection is further related to a “birds of a feather flock together” phenomenon wherein the academic profession is itself more attractive to liberals because there are more liberals present. The culture itself may discourage conservatives from pursuing an academic career or a doctoral degree, and this can be the case even in fields with relatively little or no ideological content such as particle physics or computer science (Gross, 2013; Teles, 2024).

This, however, in turn partially relates to a second mechanism, that concerning a hostile environment for conservative academics. A majority liberal community need not in principle give rise to a hostile environment for conservatives, but evidence suggests that in many settings it in fact has. Anecdotal accounts abound (Duarte et al., 2015; Whittington, 2021), but survey data suggest the same. In psychology, Inbar and Lammers (2012), report that when asked, “Do you feel that there is a hostile climate towards your political beliefs in your field?”, 82% of conservative responded “yes” compared to only 7% liberals. Even of those who indicated they were politically moderate, 72% indicated that the field constituted a hostile environment for their political beliefs. The evidence is not limited to psychology. Kaufmann (2021) report results of a study in the US of the top 100 ranked institutions which likewise indicates approximately 70% of American academics on the right perceive the climate to be hostile to their political beliefs compared 5% of those who identify as very left and 3% of those who identify as fairly left. The statistics are similar for PhD students (Kaufmann, 2021). Indeed, the data are fairly consistent in numerous surveys across the US, UK and Canada that between 60% and 80% of academics on the right consider the climate hostile to their beliefs (Kaufmann, 2021, Figure 83). Whittington (2021) cites evidence that even liberals themselves tend to recognize that the academy is a hostile environment for conservatives. When universities or university leaders regularly make statements on social and political issues, this can also reinforce the sense of an ideologically uniform culture, unwelcoming to those of other perspectives; policies of institutional neutrality (Kalven Committee, 1967) protect somewhat against this. However, a hostile culture itself will tend to discourage conservatives from pursuing an academic career or a doctoral degree, and may also result in conservative academics eventually leaving the profession due to their experience of hostility. This in turn relates to a third possible mechanism, which is discrimination.

With regard to discrimination, we might distinguish between discrimination that occurs through regular academic processes of journal review, grant review, and search committee deliberation, versus those that are structurally built into top-down policy. Duarte et al. (2015) discuss evidence concerning academic willingness to express overt hostility to those with different political views, and to justify that hostility, along with evidence for bias against research studies that are in tension with liberal positions. Perhaps more disturbing are surveys concerning the proportions of faculty willing to admit that they will discriminate against those with other political views. Inbar and Lammers (2012) report survey data that approximately one in four liberals were willing to state that they would at least somewhat discriminate against conservatives in grant applications; about one in five stated they would discriminate in journal review; and one in three in faculty hiring decisions. Similar proportions have been reported for sociologists and philosophers (Yancey, 2011). Honeycutt and Freberg (2017) likewise indicate similar results; they also provide evidence that conservatives discriminate against liberals in these ways also, and almost to the exact degree. While discrimination in grant review, journal review, and faculty hiring occurs in both directions, with the liberal-to-conservative ratio now standing at roughly 7-to-1 in the United States, the operation of such bias will mostly be in one direction: against conservatives. Such discrimination goes on to affect the likelihood of being hired to begin with but then also the likelihood of successful grant applications and successful paper reviews, affecting then also tenure decisions and the likelihood of remaining within the academic profession. There is also evidence that standards may be higher for hiring and/or tenure decisions for conservatives. Phillips (2016) presents evidence from elite law schools that libertarian and conservative professors, even after control for numerous other factors, publish considerably more than their peers and have higher citation counts, arguing that this also is the result of bias in requiring higher standards for conservative faculty. Moreover, as discussed further below, with respect to faculty hiring, bias against conservatives is also likely embedded in the research areas in which hires are made. As a department’s faculty becomes more uniform ideologically, the research topics it values and considers important likewise narrow, often excluding important research topics that conservatives might pursue but for which there are no openings and to which no priority is given (Teles, 2024). As discussed further below, psychology, for example, will often neglect the study of character, in contrast to personality; public health by and large neglects the role of religion in health (VanderWeele, 2023b).

Discrimination against conservatives in faculty hiring operates not only at the interpersonal level through regular academic processes, but is also sometimes embedded into university-level policies and processes. There is now considerable evidence that mandatory DEI statements have often been used as ideological tests to screen out faculty applicants who were not viewed as sufficiently progressive (Ortner, 2021; Finkin, 2023). A particularly dramatic example of this was a University of California Berkeley search committee that had rejected 600 out of 800 faculty applications based on their DEI statements alone (Sailer, 2023). Another example of top-down policy-related influences on declining ideological diversity among faculty include the creation of new gender-studies or ethnic-studies departments which tend to be more ideologically homogeneous. As a further example, while an emphasis on faculty recruitment of women has arguably had a number of academic benefits, women are also more likely to identify as liberal than men (Saad, 2022). Randomized experiments have indicated a roughly 2:1 preference for women over men in academic hiring when randomizing the reported gender on identical qualifications, CVs, or summaries (W. M. Williams & Ceci, 2015). The greater priority given to recruitment of women has likely also altered the liberal-to-conservative ratio. Women exceeded men in the number of doctorates awarded by 2006, and in the total number of faculty positions by 2019 (C. Clark & Winegard, 2022). Moreover, just as conservatives may be less likely in general to pursue academic careers than liberals (Duarte et al., 2015; Whittington, 2021; Teles, 2024), this arguably applies also with conservative women, some of whom may place stronger emphasis on marriage and family (Wilcox, 2024). It is not clear that conservative female perspectives are well represented in academic work. Surveys also indicate that women tend to be less supportive of allowing controversial ideas and of protecting free speech and academic freedom, and more supportive than men of dismissal campaigns and shouting down speakers (C. Clark & Winegard, 2022; Rausch, 2023), perhaps affecting subsequent faculty hiring dynamics as well. Similar patterns in altering liberal-to-conservative ratios may be at play in prioritized recruitment of racial/ethnic minorities as well (Saad, 2022). Large liberal-to-conservative ratios for administrators, who now often oversee and help shape many aspects of the faculty hiring process might also be partially responsible. S. J. Abrams (2018) reports, using the 2014 HERI Faculty Survey data, that while the liberal-to-conservative faculty ratio was 6-to1, for university administrators it was even more extreme at 12-to-1. While, as noted above, discrimination against conservatives in faculty hiring may sometimes be overt, in other cases it is embedded into policy, or even a perhaps unintended consequence of other top-down initiatives. In any case, these various forms of bias and discrimination -interpersonal, systematic, or unintentional- are thus also likewise in part responsible for the large, and increasing, liberal-to-conservative ratio among faculty in the United States.

Yet another cause with regard to changes in the liberal-to-conservative ratio may simply concern the proportion of the population that self-identifies as liberal. Brenan (2025) reports data from the Gallup poll indicating a rise in the proportion identifying as liberal/very liberal from 17% in 1992 to 25% in 2024. In contrast, the proportion identifying as conservative/very conservative essentially held steady with 36% thus reporting in 1992 and 37% in 2024 (and with the proportion identifying as moderate declining over this period). That the proportion of the population identifying as liberal increased during this time period is likely responsible for at least some of the change in faculty ideological identification as well. It is unlikely to explain all of the change since the liberal-to-conservative ratio for the U.S. population increased only 43%, whereas the analogous faculty ratio increased by over 200% during roughly the same timeframe, but it is nevertheless likely part of the explanation as well.

Further research, with stronger study designs, would be needed to better discern what proportion of the change was due to each of these particular causes or others. However, each of the mechanisms of (i) self-selection, (ii) hostility, (iii) discrimination, and (iv) demographic changes in the underlying U.S. population seems well-supported by the evidence.

3.3. Denial and Dismissal of the Trends

Regardless of the underlying causes though, the changes to the liberal-to-conservative faculty ratios over time have been fairly dramatic, and the increasing skew seems unlikely to change without intentional effort. However, compounding these issues further is what has often been a response of either denial of the changes over time, or a dismissal of the relevance of these ratios (cf. Dent, 2014). Perhaps most dramatically, Stolzenberg et al. (2019), in their official report on the 2016–2017 HERI Faculty Survey data, entitled one of their sections, “Majority of faculty identify as politically liberal, but not increasingly so.” They do this in spite of the HERI data itself being the most compelling source of evidence that the liberal-to-conservative ratio has increased.

Contradicting the evidence they themselves present, they state, “The public seems to hold the notion that there is an increasing trend related to the proportion of faculty who identify as liberal. However, our data indicate that this is not the case.” To attempt to argue this point, they largely focus on a relatively short time-span (from 2010 to 2017) and focus only on faculty identifying as “liberal” and ignoring the trends of those increasingly identifying as “far left.” Even with this latter restriction, however, in data they themselves present, the proportion that identify as “liberal” increases from 36.8% in 1989–1990 to 48.3% in 2016–2017, and as noted by S. Abrams and Khalid (2020) and others, once those on the far right and the far left are also included in the ratios, that liberal-to-conservative ratio has increased from 2.3 in 1989–1990 to 5 in 2016–2017. However, the fact that the very group providing the data deny the narrative the data itself indicates perhaps renders the data more trustworthy and less biased than might have been thought had others designed the study. The denial by Stolzenberg et al. (2019) of the trend seems to be indicative of broader attitudes to these ratios, and their changes over time, which for the most part seems to be to either deny, or ignore, or dismiss their relevance (cf. Dent, 2014).

More subtle forms of denial or dismissal also occur. Norris (2024), for example, switches the analysis from examining these ratios over time to instead examining different birth cohorts, but cross-sectionally, arguing that younger birth cohorts are just about as supportive of the voicing and discussion of controversial views as older birth cohorts, ignoring that the support from both groups has likely fallen over time and is not at present particularly high. Bonica et al. (2024) take a different approach and instead focus on faculty-student ideological concordance at law schools, suggesting that the extreme liberal-to-conservative ratio might be fine if there is in fact concordance with students, while ignoring the mechanisms of discrimination potentially at play in both trends. Hummels and Akridge (2025) focus on the discipline of economics where these matters are somewhat more balanced and rightly note that many students major in this subject but then effectively ignore the overall proportions, and broader culture, where ratios are clearly otherwise. They also claim, “the plurality of faculty self-report as neither liberal or conservative but instead as moderates.” However, from the HERI data that they point to, and praise as representing “the only long-term effort to gauge faculty political orientation,” their claim is in fact simply false. Stolzenberg et al. (2019) report 59.8% identify as liberal/far left, 28.1% as middle of the road, and 12.1% as conservative/far right. In addressing these ratios, Siraganian (2025) simply notes that the assumption of “overwhelmingly leftist” academy “has been challenged” and then just cites the Hummels and Akridge (2025) essay. However, perhaps the most compelling evidence that these matters of ideological and intellectual diversity are being ignored is that until perhaps recently there have been very few serious attempts at increasing such diversity, in spite of considerable work on increasing other forms of diversity with regard to say race and gender (Duarte et al., 2015; Hasnas, 2018). The issue is for the most part simply dismissed.

Of course, another reason for the dismissal of these trends is that in some disciplines it would seem that ideological perspectives do not, or should not, matter. In mathematics, physics, chemistry, or micro-biology, the professors’ political or ideological orientation seems irrelevant. While this may be the case for some disciplines, it is arguably not the case for others. Moreover, data suggest that it is in those disciplines in which ideological perspectives matter more that have the most extreme liberal-to-conservative faculty ratios. Thus, for example, Langbert (2018) using a sample of 8688 professors at fifty-one top-ranked institutions by the U.S. News and World Report notes that while Democrat-to-Republican ratios in say engineering, chemistry, economics, professional schools, mathematics, physics, and computer science are, respectively, 1.6, 5.2, 5.5, 5.5, 5.6, 6.3, and 6.3, for other disciplines these ratios are much higher including in political science (8.2), psychology (16.8), history (17.4), philosophy (17.5), biology (20.8), language (21.1), environmental (25.3), geoscience (27), classics (27.3), theater (29.5), music (32.8), art (40.3), sociology (43.8), English (48.3), and religion (70); in anthropology and communications there were in fact no Republicans in the sample. Moreover, even in those disciplines in which ideological perspectives matter less, there are still, as will be discussed further below, issues concerning mentorship opportunities and the general effect on campus culture.

To make the case that faculty should care about these matters, in the next section I will argue for the importance of engaging with, and sometimes fostering and promoting, intellectual and viewpoint diversity in accomplishing the university’s purposes of the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge. In the section after that I will propose strategies to do so that I believe would preserve the autonomy and integrity of academic disciplines and institutions, acknowledging the limits and bounds on such strategies entailed by a respect for evidence and academic standards.

4. The Role and Importance of Intellectual and Viewpoint Diversity

The presence of and engagement with intellectual, ideological, and viewpoint diversity arguably has an important role to play in the scholarly pursuit of knowledge, in the transmission of that knowledge to students, and in the dissemination and application of that knowledge within broader society. I will take up each of these matters in turn.

With regard to the scholarly pursuit of knowledge, the classic case for the importance of engaging with viewpoint diversity is given by Mill (1859): “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.” We need exposure to those with other views so that we can better ensure that we in fact have attained knowledge (Paulsen, 2014; Gjesdal, 2025; George & West, 2025). If knowledge is construed as something along the lines of justified true belief the evidence for which cannot be overturned (cf. Dutant, 2015; Goldman, 1976; Dretske, 1981) then we need to subject our evidence to scrutiny. Such scrutiny is necessary to be able to evaluate whether or not our evidence can be overturned, whether or not our arguments are in fact compelling, and whether others can find faults that we cannot see. While we can carry out some of this scrutiny ourselves, our evidence and knowledge will be more clearly established if it can hold up to cross-examination by those who may see things differently. Moreover, sometimes we may in fact be wrong. As argued by Mill (1859), we need to encounter the ideas and arguments of opposing sides and those with other perspectives so as to be able to refine, correct, and sometimes even change our own positions. A large body of empirical evidence now also clearly shows that individuals are especially bad at noticing their own biases, and much better at spotting those of others (Kahneman, 2011; Haidt, 2012; Stanovich et al., 2013; Pinker, 2022). Engagement with others gives us an opportunity to correct our own biases and positions, but also gives us the opportunity to refine, correct, or change the positions of others. This engagement further enables us to understand our own positions and their rational grounds, to understand the positions of others and their rational grounds, and potentially to also sometimes find consensus and common ground on practical ways forward even if our own and others’ views have not been altered.

For this process of evaluation and assessment of evidence and of arguments to work well, however, we need exposure to and engagement with those with different perspectives. We need some degree of viewpoint and intellectual diversity. Intellectual and viewpoint diversity is an important means in the pursuit of knowledge. Moreover, we need alternative views, and arguments for them, not only to be present, but also articulated. Thus, it is not only the presence and distribution of different perspectives within an academic context that are relevant, but also whether there is freedom and space for those perspectives to be articulated and argued for (Bejan, 2019). It is not only the composition of students and faculty that are relevant but also whether there is a culture of open inquiry, or of self-censorship. For the pursuit of knowledge, we need a robust culture of open inquiry, dialogue, critique, and engagement. A culture of self-censorship will impede the pursuit of knowledge. A culture of presumed or enforced orthodoxies will impede our exposure to other ideas and will consequently likewise impede the pursuit of knowledge (George, 2014; Paulsen, 2014).

Of course, if all goes well, through the process of collecting evidence and putting forward arguments we will in some cases indeed be able to establish knowledge. We can sometimes come to consensus within the academic community on various matters on rational grounds. The natural sciences, for example, regularly make clear that this is so. However, the very criterion for discerning whether we have indeed reached that state of knowledge is whether evidence for a position cannot be overturned and whether all relevant counter-evidence can be refuted. Even when we believe we have attained knowledge, we should, in academic settings, be open to addressing the questioning and skepticism of those who, at least initially, may see things differently. It is when we can convince, on rational grounds, essentially any thoughtful well-intentioned inquirer of a particular position that the claim to having established knowledge, rather than just having evidence, is plausible. At that point, viewpoint diversity is not necessary and is contrary to knowledge. However, prior to that point, viewpoint diversity will generally assist us in the pursuit of that knowledge. And the mechanism by which viewpoint diversity is to be gradually eliminated is evidence and argument and reason, not suppression.

However, for many economic, moral, political, philosophical, and other questions, we are not as easily able to come to rationally-grounded consensus. In such cases, the present state, and increasing trends, of ideological conformity then arguably become counter-productive in the university’s pursuit of knowledge. This does not mean that good research and scholarship cannot take place. However, it does mean that poor quality scholarship becomes easier and more pervasive, and our capacity to distinguish between the two is also weakened. We become less able to determine whether we have arrived at knowledge and whether we have a sense as to whether our evidence can be overturned, less capable of producing the most rigorous arguments and evidence, and less able to generate new ideas emerging from synthesis and resolution of initially conflicting perspectives.

Such impediments to knowledge arise even in areas of research of central interest to those of more liberal and progressive orientations. Research on how to reduce racial health and income disparities, for example, has arguably been impaired by lack of sufficient scrutiny and critique. Many well-meaning proposals and ideas, such as implicit-bias training, have ultimately proved ineffective (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016; Kovera, 2019; Paluck et al., 2021; Penner et al., 2014; Sander, 2004) and it would have been better if these had been challenged earlier. However, criticism of any potential disparity reduction proposal will often be met with the accusation of racism. It becomes easier to publish poorer quality research, or to continue research that is purely descriptive, rather than directed towards effective solutions to disparity reduction (D. R. Williams & Purdie-Vaughns, 2016; VanderWeele & Robinson, 2014; Jackson & VanderWeele, 2018). There is certainly plenty of high-quality research on this topic. However, without a culture of greater scrutiny, it becomes more difficult to discern what it is that we actually know, and what approaches might actually be effective. Both research and social outcomes are ultimately adversely affected. And both knowledge and social outcomes might well benefit from integrating what are often viewed as more liberal approaches with what might be seen as more conservative thinking on addressing issues such as increasing inequality and racial disparities (Braswell et al., 2020; Cass, 2023).

Similar phenomena are at play in less partisan causes as well: the public health community has expressed concern over the rising rates of suicide in the United States (Martínez-Alés et al., 2022). However, lack of ideological diversity is arguably responsible for a blindness as to the social forces giving rise to the increasing suicide rates within the United States such as declines in religious participation (Martínez-Alés et al., 2022; VanderWeele et al., 2017; VanderWeele, 2024a). Scholarship and public health are consequently more poorly served.

The extent to which ideological diversity matter in the pursuit of knowledge is likely to vary by discipline and will in general matter more in the humanities and social sciences, or in public health and public policy, than in physics or mathematics. In disciplines in which it does matter, the specific impediments arising from ideological conformity and lack of intellectual diversity will also vary across discipline and greater awareness of and reflection upon the biases that may affect the quality of academic work would be valuable. In the discipline of psychology, for example, Duarte et al. (2015) argue that the lack of ideological diversity risks impeding knowledge and progress in the field in that: Liberal values and assumptions can become embedded into theory and methodology. Researchers concentrate on topics that validate the “liberal progress narrative” (maximizing individual autonomy and overturning tradition will bring happiness) and avoid topics that contest that narrative. Negative attitudes regarding conservatives can produce a psychological science that mischaracterizes their traits and attributes. Lack of any challenge results in confirmation bias. Lack of diverse viewpoints restricts creativity within psychology. Many of these same phenomena are likely at play in other disciplines as well (Smith, 2014).

Ultimately, if the university, and particular departments and disciplines are genuinely committed to the pursuit of knowledge, then faculty members should care enough about this pursuit to desire to seek out other perspectives so as to be able to better ensure their own capacity to defend their positions, and to ensure and safeguard knowledge. There should be a desire to engage with others so as to refine one’s position and arguments so as to render one’s position and case more persuasive. With attempts to try to enforce a presumed orthodoxy or reinforce self-censorship, students will more likely be left with a sense that university scholarship in fact entails a great deal of presumption, unpersuasive arguments, and lack of engagement with contrary perspectives (Whittington, 2021). For those who believe they have genuine knowledge, there should be a confidence, and a desire, to confront challenges. Indeed the defense of one’s position in the face of seemingly compelling counter-arguments constitutes one of the strongest possible demonstrations of the veracity of one’s view. It can be a powerful means of persuasion. Conversely, ideally, members of an academic community should have sufficient humility to realize that they might sometimes be wrong. A healthy academic community should be such that each member of the community feels comfortable articulating views with a realization of, and even an appreciation of, the possibility that one’s positions may be refuted, or may need to be refined. A healthy academic community should thus be one that welcomes, and even seeks out, discrepant contrarian views so as to refine and strengthen positions and arguments, or alternatively to correct them. All of this requires some degree of intellectual and viewpoint diversity.

Some degree of intellectual and viewpoint diversity is beneficial not only in the pursuit and expansion of knowledge within a discipline, but also in its transmission to students. Whittington (2021) argues that ideological homogeneity ultimately hampers teaching and the transmission of knowledge to students because a less ideologically diverse faculty provides less diverse insights and emphases; because it renders individual faculty members less capable of adequately presenting and arguing for, and even acknowledging, alternative viewpoints; because of lack of opportunities for mentorship and formation of conservative students; and because some students will be turned off by what they perceive as uniform ideological biases, and may, as a result, turn elsewhere for guidance. A survey from what is now more than 20 years ago among fifty top-ranked U.S. colleges, indicated that, even then, 48% of undergraduates complained of campus presentations that “seem totally one-sided” and 42% complained that reading assignments presented only one side of a controversial issue (ACTA, 2004). Recent analyses of syllabi seem to confirm this point (J. A. Shields et al., 2025).

Even in disciplines such as mathematics or physics where the absence of viewpoint diversity seems less relevant, nevertheless lack of mentorship opportunities and role models from those viewed as having similar perspectives may give rise to a sense of isolation in the academy. Students again may turn elsewhere for guidance, and to less reliable sources in the pursuit of knowledge. This is turn may well adversely affect the future of conservative thought and the next generation of conservative leaders. Exclusion of conservative viewpoints from the academy will ultimately arguably weaken conservative thought, weaken our capacity for reasoned democracy, and weaken our knowledge base. Conversely, intellectual and viewpoint diversity in classrooms may help in better understanding the perspectives of others; may help in clarifying and sharpening positions and arguments; and ultimately may help also in assisting with the formation of students so as to be able to carry out civil discourse, to find common ground, and to have the capacity to work across differences (Hasnas, 2018; VanderWeele, 2023b).

While lack of ideological diversity of the faculty arguably does adversely affect undergraduates in the ways described above, the situation for undergraduates may be more nuanced than with faculty and graduate students. The ratios of liberal to conservative students are not as skewed (Kaufmann, 2022; Stevens, 2023), and often there are sufficient numbers of conservative undergraduates to have societies and organizations in which to find community. While there may be complaints concerning an insufficient number of courses presenting conservative thought, some conservative students view the environment as one in which they are forced to defend and refine their positions. Indeed, in a recent article (Publius, 2024), liberal students at Yale complained that the conservative students had received a superior education because they were constantly having to defend and refine their views, whereas liberal students’ positions would often go unchallenged even when they offered weak arguments. This is simply the manifestation of Mill’s arguments on intellectual and viewpoint diversity as applied to student life. Ideally all students, and faculty, would be forced to, and have the opportunity to, have their views subject to scrutiny and have the opportunity to defend, refine, or correct them.

Sometimes arguments are put forward against exposure to viewpoint diversity in classrooms on the grounds that certain viewpoints can feel threatening or challenge one’s identity or that students do not feel safe (cf. Whittington, 2019; Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019; Gersen, 2021). As discussed further below, for such challenges to be welcome, it will often be important to have a culture of trust and a healthy academic community. However, it is also important to note that physical safety is very different from safety from ideas. If the central goal of these institutions is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and shaping the capacity for thought, encountering difficult ideas or positions other than one’s own in fact helps facilitate this. Excessive protection from ideas and people with whom one disagrees weakens understanding and the pursuit of knowledge, can make a person weaker psychologically (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019), and less able to understand others and to find common ground, and even less able to see the humanity of others (Wahl, 2021, 2024).

Lack of adequate ideological and viewpoint diversity might also hamper the university in its dissemination of knowledge to the general public. Public trust in universities has dramatically declined over the past decade, both for Republicans and for Democrats. In questions concerning confidence in higher education, Jones (2024) reports a fall from 57% having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education in 2015, to 36% in 2024, a sharp decline over a short period of time. When surveyed as to the principal reasons for this lack of confidence, the two most frequent reasons that are given are (i) the political agendas of academic institutions and (ii) not having the right focus in teaching. The lack of intellectual and ideological diversity has perhaps partially resulted in declining trust in universities, even for members of the public who identify as being on the left. Certainly, other factors are at play here as well including the replication crisis in the sciences (Open Science Collaboration, 2015) and the politicalization of science outside the academy (Schmid-Petri et al., 2022). However, again the Gallup data indicate that politics within the academy is an important part of the distrust as well (Jones, 2024). Whittington (2021) thus argues that ideological homogeneity hampers the truth- and knowledge- disseminating functions of universities owing to loss of trust, and a sense from many members of the general public that their interests are not aligned with the university and its faculty. Whittington (2021) further argues that such declining levels of trust, and trustworthiness, ultimately results in many turning away from universities as sources of knowledge and instead to popularizers, ideologues, and charlatans.

Lack of adequate ideological and viewpoint is relevant not only for public trust in academic work, and public dissemination of knowledge, but also in the application of knowledge and its use in service to the public good. Declining trust in universities impedes our capacity to use knowledge to influence public opinion and action for the public good. Decreasing trust creates a greater skepticism around science itself. Lack of ideological diversity also more easily allows for the conflation of science and values, wherein, perhaps unwittingly, “Follow the science…” in fact means “Follow my values…” Science itself becomes more politicized (Schmid-Petri et al., 2022). This in turn leads to yet greater skepticism. Such phenomena were manifest in profound ways during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kennedy & Tyson, 2023; Perlis et al., 2024; Flanigan, 2024).

Lack of ideological diversity among faculty can also lead to certain topics of societal importance being neglected. Setting aside issues of legality and access, 46% of American women believe that abortion is wrong (Brenan, 2021). It is not clear who in the academic public health community is attending to, or carrying out research on, the needs of such women in the face of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Similarly, while there is considerable important scholarship on workplace salary differentials between men and women, and on what might be done to reduce them, it is also the case that roughly half of American families would prefer to have one parent who stays at home rather than in paid employment (Greco, 2022). Research literature on how to support families with such preferences is vastly underdeveloped in comparison. The interests and priorities of large portions of the general public are not served; there is not sufficient ideological diversity among the faculty to do so (Flanigan, 2024).

The issues raised above concerning student mentorship are also relevant with regard to matters of public service as well. As noted above, when students cannot find mentorship, they may well turn to other and potentially less reliable sources. Some of these students will go on to occupy future leadership positions. The university would ideally take on a role of shaping and supporting future leaders from all perspectives. It is not, however, clear that many of our schools of public health today, for example, are currently constituted in ways that Republican students would feel welcome, and if this is so, our society, and population health, will be worse off for it (VanderWeele, 2023a). Lack of ideological diversity may thus not only adversely affect scholarship and teaching but also, through declining trust, neglected topics, and inadequate mentorship, impede the service of academic institutions to the public good.

5. Strategies for Intellectual and Viewpoint Diversity

In this section, I will propose a number of strategies for either engaging with, or in some cases, when appropriate, cultivating, intellectual and viewpoint diversity. I will also consider what might be taken as appropriate limits or bounds concerning such efforts, shaped principally by the scholarly standards of academic disciplines. The distinctions drawn above between intellectual and viewpoint diversity will be relevant here. In many ways, engagement with viewpoint diversity is more straightforward. Such engagement can often be facilitated by an effective instructor presenting a range of positions and arguments for them, by creating an environment in which students are comfortable explaining their beliefs and lines of reasoning, and by facilitating civil discourse and having students wrestle with positions that are not their own. Intellectual diversity, concerned with the intellect and systems of thought, pertains more to persons and the composition of the faculty and the student body, and these matters may be more challenging. As noted above, there is considerable evidence that ideological diversity has declined among faculty over time. However, how to alter or correct this matter while preserving the autonomy of disciplines and departments is not straightforward. Nevertheless, proposals will be put forward below that might help achieve this. I will, however, begin with the arguably more straightforward matter of engagement with viewpoint diversity.

Even with matters of viewpoint diversity within a classroom, the question of the appropriate norms and limits of the views to be presented is not entirely straightforward. Not all views are equal. Some viewpoints may be supported by considerably more evidence than others. Time is also not unlimited in the classroom. There may be numerous views held by only a tiny fraction of the population. Not all views should necessarily be given equal time in a course. Moreover, cultivating viewpoint diversity is ultimately a means to obtaining genuine knowledge, not an end in itself (Fish, 2004; Paulsen, 2014). If we have genuine advances in knowledge, the evidence for which cannot be overturned, ultimately ideally nearly everyone will come to the same position, e.g., that the earth is round. As argued above, however, viewpoint diversity can be of critical importance with unsettled or more contentious matters, in coming to a better understanding of what might be true, and in realizing the limits of our knowledge and evidence. These points will guide the discussion and principles put forward below.

5.1. Engagement with Viewpoint Diversity in Classrooms

I will begin by putting forward a principle as to when an instructor should seriously consider presenting a particular view and the arguments for, and against, it in class. I would propose the following Viewpoint Teaching Principle: “If many people believe X about topic Y, and many others do not, then a course on Y should ideally include the strongest arguments for, and against, X.” The basic idea of the principle is that if a belief or position is widely held within society, then students should have an awareness of the evidence and arguments for and against it.1

Importantly, it is proposed that arguments both for, and against, each relevant position are given. In cases for which there is strong rational scholarly consensus against the position (such as that the earth is only 6000 years old as with young earth creationism), then there might not be many or any good arguments in favor. However, it would still be worthwhile presenting the arguments against the position, and equipping students to be able present and understand such arguments. Students with an understanding of, and the capacity to present, such arguments would hopefully ultimately affect general societal beliefs over time as well. On less settled matters, or on questions of moral beliefs, values, and societal policy, a definitive case will often not be possible, and on such matters again the strongest arguments for and against each relevant position should ideally be presented.2 There also needs to be space within the classroom to allow students to put forward arguments for a position that the instructor may have overlooked. Even in cases in which there is scholarly consensus about a position, and in which all or nearly all students hold a particular position, presenting the relevant arguments for and against the position will be valuable from a pedagogical perspective. Presentations of potentially contrarian views will also alter the learning environment so as to avoid it being one of presumption and social pressure of assuming everyone believes the same thing. Such presumption may further hinder students and faculty from considering whether there are any strong arguments for alternative positions, and it can furthermore impede our ability to even distinguish those cases in which there are, or are not, arguments in support of other positions. Recent analyses of college syllabi (J. A. Shields et al., 2025) have indicated that on certain controversial issues, such as racial bias in the criminal justice system and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, faculty usually do not expose students to the broader scholarly controversy around these issues. The implementation of the proposed Viewpoint Teaching Principle would in many cases correct this.

Ideally, students would not only see arguments for and against positions presented, but in fact engage with such arguments themselves, including ones they disagree with or even find offensive (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019). A number of techniques to do so have been previously proposed and could more frequently be employed to facilitate such engagement. Students can be assigned to defend a position that they do not hold, or randomly assigned to sides of a debate. Outside the context of debate, students can be asked to write essays explaining how a reasonable person might hold a position that they disagree with, and this itself can facilitate understanding the nuances of other arguments. In the context of teaching, an “ideological Turing test” (Brand et al., 2023) can be employed wherein a student needs to be able to summarize an opposing side’s arguments sufficiently well that a neutral person could not distinguish whether the summary had been written by a person who agreed or disagreed with the position, or, under some renderings, even well enough that a person on the opposing side might guess the author agreed with the position. Students can in principle be asked to carry this out for both of two opposing positions. A variation on this approach, that may be more practical in classroom settings, would be to require a student to summarize the argument of the opposing side of a debate sufficiently well that someone in the classroom who held that view agreed that it was a good summary. The summary could be attempted repeatedly, perhaps in collaboration with other students in the class, until it met this threshold. The scholastic practice of disputation (cf. Novikoff, 2013) required one to present the strongest arguments of the opposing view first and such approaches could also be employed within classroom contexts. When an instructor believes that he or she is incapable of summarizing the most persuasive arguments for alternative positions, and that others in the class are incapable as well, bringing in an outside speaker can facilitate this. Each of these various approaches can help facilitate and implement the proposed viewpoint teaching principle.

Often there may be more viewpoint diversity in a class than is initially apparent. Creating a classroom and university environment in which all students are comfortable explaining their positions and why they hold these positions will help facilitate reasoned argument. Such an environment will more easily allow for leveraging existing viewpoint diversity within a classroom. Unfortunately, however, on many campuses there has been an increasing culture of self-censorship. Honeycutt (2024a) reports that 35% of faculty say they recently toned down their writing for fear of controversy, far greater than the 9% who reported doing so during the height of the McCarthy era. A recent report by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) indicated that 40% of conservative students and 21% of liberal students self-censor “fairly often” or “very often” and approximately 70% of conservative and 50% of liberal students feel uncomfortable expressing a controversial view in class (Stevens, 2023). The sense of a hostile culture for conservative students likely contributes to such self-censorship (J. A. Shields & Dunn Sr, 2016). Continual efforts by leadership in regular university communications, by faculty in classes, and in orientation sessions, to regularly reinforce principles of civil discourse, of the value of engaging with other perspectives, and of truth-seeking and the pursuit of knowledge may help address these matters. Hosting debates between speakers, committed to civil discourse, on the most controversial topics might also help partially diffuse a culture of self-censorship. Efforts could also be made to foster in students courage to articulate more controversial views, honesty in expressing what they truly think, patience in hearing out positions that may be offensive, justice in giving each person an opportunity to speak, and humility to realize they may learn something from those with whom they disagree. Character development in all of these ways could help facilitate civil discourse and engagement with viewpoint diversity (VanderWeele & Case, 2025; Case & VanderWeele, 2025).

5.2. Intellectual Diversity and Faculty Hiring

While the approaches just described may help facilitate engagement with viewpoint diversity and thereby facilitate learning, understanding, and the pursuit of knowledge, there are limitations. With declining ideological diversity, many important defensible views may not be represented anywhere among the faculty. This does not necessarily prevent engagement with viewpoint diversity, but it can impede it. Faculty who actually hold the position under consideration will be more likely to be able to give a compelling presentation of the view and arguments for it, and more likely to present such views and arguments. A more intellectually diverse faculty may help counter the increasing culture of self-censorship. Moreover, lack of an ideologically diverse faculty will often mean lack of opportunities for undergraduate mentorship, and for graduate student research supervision on various neglected topics due to the ideological conformity. The aforementioned approaches to engagement with viewpoint diversity cannot fully address many of these issues.

However, efforts at promoting “intellectual diversity” have often been met with skepticism and critique and there are indeed challenges with regard to maintaining the autonomy and integrity of academic disciplines and institutions concerning some of the proposed measures (AAUP, 2003; Fish, 2004; Whitmore, 2008; Orzeck, 2012; Wilson, 2019; Applebaum, 2020; Kammer, 2020; Dotson, 2020; Siraganian, 2025). About twenty years ago there was notable discussion around matters of intellectual diversity concerning what was put forward as an “Academic Bill of Rights” (Horowitz, 2002). On the face of it, many of the principles suggested seemed reasonable: “no political, ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors”; “no faculty shall be hired or fired or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of his or her political or religious beliefs”; “maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields of inquiry.” However, concerns were expressed that the proposed bill and related notions of intellectual diversity would be used by state legislatures for regulatory oversight or to try to impose quotas on hiring conservative faculty (Fish, 2004; Aby, 2007). The bill itself, and the use that was made of it, thus came under some critique over these issues, and over showing insufficient respect for the autonomy and scholarly standards of academic disciplines, and for attempting to force change from the top down (AAUP, 2003; Fish, 2004).

Just as with viewpoint diversity, the intellectual diversity of a faculty is not an end in itself (Fish, 2004), but rather, a potentially important means in the pursuit of knowledge, along with the transmission of that knowledge to students, and the dissemination and application of that knowledge to broader society. While efforts could be made to counter discrimination, to avoid a hostile culture, and to reform policies which intentionally exclude conservatives, affirmative action or quotas for conservative faculty seem undesirable with regard to respecting the academic standards of disciplines and ensuring the strongest possible faculty. However, a central and neglected explanation for lack of intellectual and ideological diversity may concern the research areas in which departments choose to hire (Teles, 2024; VanderWeele, 2024b). As a departmental faculty becomes more uniform ideologically, the research topics it values and considers important may narrow, often excluding important research topics that conservatives might pursue, but for which there are no openings, and to which no priority is given (Alexander, 2016). This may occur in faculty searches targeted to particular research topics more likely to be valued by liberals, or it may occur informally in deliberations in an open search by prioritizing certain research subfields over others. There are, for example, within public health essentially no targeted faculty searches concerning religion and health, or marriage and health, in spite of compelling evidence that these matters powerfully shape population health (Balboni et al., 2022; Koenig et al., 2024; Chen et al., 2023; Manzoli et al., 2007). Such topics are perhaps of less interest to liberal faculty. Similar phenomena may take place elsewhere within a scholarly discipline, with journals and editorial boards, and within funding agencies. In any case, the research topics that are prioritized may constitute a fundamental cause for the decline in ideological diversity, and one that can perhaps more easily be addressed. Doing so would arguably be of benefit to academic disciplines, to their breadth of research, and also to creating greater intellectual and ideological diversity on the faculty with the accompanying benefits to the generation, transmission, dissemination, and application of knowledge discussed above.

On these grounds, I would put forward an Intellectual Diversity Faculty Hiring Principle (cf. VanderWeele, 2024b) that I believe would both allow for an expansion of intellectual diversity and the breadth of research coverage, and also respect the scholarly standards of disciplines and the merit-based notion that the strongest academic faculty member should be hired. I would thus propose that, among other considerations that a department might weigh in faculty hiring, they should also consider choosing research areas for targeted faculty searches using the following Intellectual Diversity Faculty Hiring Principle:

When a research area requires attention to viewpoints that are held by a large portion of the population and that exert significant influence on policy or society, it would be advantageous to have someone on faculty who either holds the view or conducts research on those who do. More specifically, when such viewpoints concern values, or concern matters on which there is not scholarly consensus, it would be advantageous to have a faculty member who holds the view; in contrast, when there is evidence-based scholarly consensus that the relevant view is false, it would be advantageous to have someone who studies those who hold that view.

Universities could thus prioritize faculty searches on topics that would render them more likely to hire faculty who hold disfavored or controversial views on important research topics that are held by a large portion of the population, have not been clearly refuted, and influence culture and policy. With such topic areas, a department would still hire the strongest candidate, independent of political views or identity, but searches in such research areas would likely, over time, result in greater intellectual and ideological diversity among faculty, and a broader range of topics studied. The principle would of course need to be weighed against other research and teaching priorities of a department. However, the application of this principle to research topics and viewpoints that are currently underrepresented in academic work would both preserve disciplinary autonomy and scholarly standards and also increase intellectual and ideological diversity in ways that enhance the pursuit of knowledge.

By restricting the principle to viewpoints that are held by a large portion of the population and that exert significant influence on policy or society, the principle also helps distinguish between topics of importance that have been neglected because of ideological conformity versus what are merely fringe topics. The application of this principle to philosophy might suggest, for example, that a philosophy department carry out a faculty search focused on Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy (not just theology) continues to exert considerable influence over Catholic understandings and teachings and on Catholicism’s more than one billion members. Within psychology departments, faculty searches could be carried out on the empirical study of character (and not simply personality). Faculty searches on military history could be carried out more often within history departments. Faculty searches on religion and health, or on pro-life approaches to support women’s health, could be carried out within departments and schools of epidemiology and public health.3

As articulated in the principle, on certain topics concerning diverse viewpoints, it may not necessarily be desirable to have someone on faculty who holds those views, but it may nevertheless be desirable to have someone who studies those who do. It would arguably not be desirable to have someone on faculty who holds the view that the earth is 6000 years old, but the fact that this position is held by many in the United States and exerts some influence, might suggest that having someone on faculty who devotes time to the study of those who do hold such a position might be advantageous so as to understand their reasoning. A department with such a faculty member might be more effective in communicating the reasons to the general public for rejecting such a position. On other topics, matters may be more complicated. Given the scholarly consensus, and the weight of the scientific evidence, it would not necessarily be desirable to have someone on faculty who denied any role of human action in climate change. However, once again it may be desirable to have someone on faculty who studies those who held such positions. There are, moreover, open debates as to the relative contribution of human action versus other causes, and also as what is to be done, and how this is to be prioritized relative to other issues (Lomborg, 2020; Koonin, 2024). Debate and civil discourse on these topics, rather than presumed positions, would arguably help facilitate sensible ways forward, and ways that may be acceptable to larger portions of the general public. Some diversity of views on appropriate ways to address, and the relative weight to give to, matters of climate change might ultimately give rise to more practically implementable long-term solutions. And even on this topic, ideological conformity can adversely affect science. In a recent account (Brown, 2023), a climate scientist argues that he could not give a full picture of the science concerning those aspects of forest fires that were not due to climate change because the journal Nature would otherwise not have published his results since they would not have fully conformed to the ideological narrative. The science itself was adversely affected by lack of ideological diversity.

For such proposed faculty searches to take place, there would generally need to be sufficient interest among a department’s faculty to be concerned about these matters. One possible mechanism to create motivation for such searches would be for a department or school to undertake reviews of the breadth of the department’s research and teaching and consider what topics it may be neglecting. Annual reporting of department-level, school-level and university-level data on the ideological and political composition of faculty, would also be valuable, along with annual discussion as to whether lack of intellectual or ideological diversity may ultimately be impeding the research, teaching, student mentorship, and service to society of the faculty. Data could likewise be routinely collected on whether students themselves view there being adequate exposure to diverse viewpoints (Dent, 2014).

All of these measures might in principle be taken on voluntarily by a department’s faculty. However, institutional-level efforts might also be made. University leaders and department chairs could assess, in school-wide or departmental reviews, which research topics may be neglected due to ideological conformity, and consider strategic hires in those areas. In principle, such reviews could also be carried out by national professional organizations at the level of the entire discipline. Visiting review committees could likewise pose these questions and consider also the quality of scholarship within departments and whether this might be partially compromised by insufficient engagement with viewpoint diversity. University leadership could also more regularly emphasize that all rationally defensible viewpoints are to be welcome in the university setting, including those holding non-majority ideological and political positions (Whittington, 2021; Teles, 2024). Efforts might be made to endow professorships dedicated to specific neglected topics that may be of more interest to conservative faculty, such as those described above. This could be done at both junior and senior faculty levels. Donors and funding agencies could also assist by allocating funding to a more diverse range of research topics than is the case at present.

Whittington (2021) also discusses more substantial institutional interventions such as establishing new schools or centers devoted to conservative thought, and indeed some such centers and schools are emerging. The downside of such institutions is of course the mirror-image of the difficulties currently besetting universities (Teles, 2024): a lack of ideological diversity. If such new schools and departments are uniformly conservative this too could ultimately impoverish scholarship, teaching, and public service. It might also, however, be argued that such schools and centers are needed at present to help address the imbalance. Nevertheless, for there to be proper restoration of the university to a community of open inquiry, in which potentially conflicting perspectives engage with one another for the purposes of refinement, correction, and understanding of positions and arguments, and identifying common ground, then it would be important that the faculty at these new centers and schools likewise engage with faculty of other ideological positions in other parts of the university. It might also be argued that a further advantage of such centers or schools is that it may be easier to achieve more substantial intellectual and ideological diversity more quickly, without having to persuade or impose that departments themselves make efforts to ensure such diversity. Such centers and schools may also be important in providing a pipeline of more conservative graduate students to fill positions subsequently. With the extreme ideological imbalance, it can often be difficult finding adequate mentorship on many topics. Such centers and schools may thus also provide a mechanism whereby graduate students can work on neglected topics of more interest to conservatives.

Efforts at cultivating a greater intellectual and ideological diversity among faculty might ultimately help reverse some of the aspects of discrimination against conservatives noted above with regard to faculty hires, grants, journals, award committees, student admissions, and graduate student mentorship. Greater faculty intellectual diversity might help reshape what are considered central versus fringe topics within a discipline, and thereby also reshape editorial willingness to publish on such topics in high-ranked journals, along with additional grant opportunities for funding in these areas of study. This would in turn alter opportunities for academic success, appointments, and promotion, and further then alter opportunities for graduate study of subsequent generations. Without faculty on such neglected topics, prospective students may decide it is not worth applying, or may face rejection for lack of advisors; the absence of graduate students reinforces a perception that departments do not need to hire in these areas (cf. Teles, 2024). If efforts are not made at addressing this, the self-perpetuating cycle of narrowing ideological perspectives at universities is likely to continue, along with the accompanying problems of self-censorship. Extreme lack of ideological and viewpoint diversity inhibits scholarship, teaching, and public service. The viewpoint teaching principle and intellectual diversity faculty hiring principle, along with the various accompanying approaches discussed above, arguably hold some promise in addressing these matters.

6. The Purposes of the University and What Is at Stake

This final section aims to situate the considerations above within the present context of the threats to higher education, and serves as a more speculative call to action to address these matters in hope of advancing the university’s service to society and in hope of advancing the fundamental purpose of the university in its pursuit of truth.

At present, many universities face a crisis or threat of severe federal funding cuts and of other proposed government interventions within university life. The reasons given for these cuts and restrictions concern accusations of institutionalized antisemitism, ideological capture, discrimination in admissions and hiring, and poor academic standards, among others (Greubaum et al., 2025; Compact, 2025). While some of the criticisms are exaggerated, many of the concerns are real. Complicating matters further, some of the proposals in negotiations to restore funding involve a forfeiting of the autonomy of the university and threats to academic freedom (Greubaum et al., 2025; Compact, 2025; Knott, 2025). Moreover, while there have been good-faith arguments put forward to promote viewpoint diversity in the pursuit of truth, other efforts are inevitably more politically motivated (Siraganian, 2025; Tomasi & Haidt, 2025). In the present political context, one might reasonably take the position that the most substantial threats to university life today are those from external government pressure. However, much of that pressure has itself arguably arisen precisely because of the lack of ideological and viewpoint diversity. And, as argued above, there is much that could be carried out internally to promote appropriate forms of ideological and viewpoint diversity without compromising the university’s autonomy and principles.

Underlying many of the criticisms of higher education is the concern that some universities have themselves effectively become partisan institutions, wherein the vast majority of the work is devoted to, or comes from the perspectives of those aligned with, a single political party. Universities may deny this, and reaffirm their ideals. But the statistics are nevertheless troubling. J. Shields (2018) reports on data indicating that, “Republicans make up 4% of historians, 3% of sociologists, and a mere 2% of literature professors.” In practice this means that in many, or most, such departments there are no Republican members of faculty and quite possibly no one to the right of center (cf. Teles, 2024); I would likewise speculate that in many schools of public health there are no registered Republican faculty members. The culture in many contexts is simply too hostile (cf. VanderWeele, 2023a), and, as noted above, this leaves important public health topics neglected, and also effectively abdicates responsibility for shaping the public health thinking for roughly half of current and future U.S. administrations. Lack of ideological diversity impoverishes our ability to carry out discourse across disagreement and to find common ground, and it ultimately impoverishes also our scholarship and teaching. As argued above, this is not merely the result of lack of interest in these topics by conservatives, but also of hostility and discrimination. There perhaps ought to be room for more ideologically committed institutions within the landscape of American higher education (Paulsen, 2014), but then, just as is the case with religious institutions, this should be explicitly stated so that students and faculty are aware of these commitments in advance.

Universities are undoubtedly more than simply engines for knowledge. They are embedded in a social, cultural, economic, and political context. Within such contexts, they also constitute communities. Faculty, students, and staff bring with them their identities, histories, values, and hopes. Students come in part to be formed. Learning and personal change takes place not only in the classroom but through discussions and through meeting people of different backgrounds. While the hopes, goals, values, and identities of members of the university community are important, the university is also the place where these hopes, goals, values and identities themselves can come under scrutiny for further reflection.

Constructive engagement across diverse viewpoints can facilitate that. However, such constructive engagement also requires trust, meaningful relationships, a welcoming environment, and a culture in which trying to understand across differences is the norm. Without these things, disagreements are less likely to be seen as opportunities for learning and understanding, and more likely to be viewed as causes for hostility and an entrenching of oppositional identities and a sense of tribalism. At its best, the university should be a place where those of liberal or conservative or other leanings should feel welcome, where people of diverse demographic, ideological, religious, or other backgrounds can come together, knowing there will be others who may disagree with them on fundamental matters, but with an appreciation of the capacity to learn about, and from, others, and to learn about oneself. Each perspective has its own blind spots and hidden assumptions, and engagement with others can make these more transparent. A commitment to the joint pursuit of knowledge and truth can help reinforce that perspective; and a welcoming community of trust can help provide the conditions needed for this. Said another way, a flourishing academic community with a shared purpose in the pursuit of truth (VanderWeele & Case, 2025) could arguably go a long way in relieving many of the tensions that are being experienced within the current context of higher education.

It might reasonably be argued that the present essay has in fact placed too much emphasis on political and ideological differences and imbalances, perhaps yet further contributing to the politicalization of the university. Ideally, in much of university life, one’s political commitments might play a very secondary role; and some departments may indeed function in this manner. However, many departments and institutions have considerably departed from that ideal and, as documented above, most conservative academics feel the environment is hostile to them. The political and ideological landscape of higher education arguably must be taken seriously before it can be set aside as a more secondary matter. The aim, however, should arguably be for both individual and communal decision-making and culture to be shaped and governed by the fundamental purpose of the university in the pursuit of truth.

While there is, and should be, room for political action on university campuses, what arguably makes the university distinctive, as the particular type of community it is, is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. When this purpose is threatened or subordinated, community life itself will also be impaired. As argued above, the continued declining ideological diversity on university campuses constitutes a real threat to the pursuit of knowledge and has itself contributed to a culture of censorship, threats to academic freedom, a loss of the shared university mission in the pursuit of knowledge, and the accompanying disintegration in the community fabric that this shared mission can provide. There are disadvantages of excessive partisanship within an institution. With greater partisanship it also becomes easier to replace scholarship with activism, which will then itself often go unchallenged, even when such activism is contrary to, or disrupts, teaching and research at the university. Consequently, the university is more likely to be co-opted for political purposes and to weaken in its academic nature in the pursuit of truth; it becomes more frequently used as a vehicle for political action. To prevent this, there needs to be a reaffirmation of the university’s purposes in the generation, preservation and transmission of knowledge, and a working towards the conditions that best enable this.

While in the pursuit of new knowledge there may always be a somewhat greater attraction from those with liberal orientations, conservative perspectives are arguably important in the university’s role in the preservation of knowledge, and of the institution of the university itself. Conservatism itself might be understood as a fundamental orientation toward prioritizing the conservation of what is good in the lives of individuals, communities, and society, grounded in the idea that it is easier to destroy good than to create it, and thus that traditions ought to be respected, that necessary reforms often ought to be carried out gradually, and that rapid radical changes can often do considerable harm. Such thinking is important in the preservation of the university, and of institutions more broadly. Both knowledge and society would arguably benefit from better synthesis of, and interaction between, more liberal and more conservative perspectives.

There have been increasing concerns over threats to academic freedom, both from the left and from the right (Whittington, 2019; Siraganian, 2025). However, without sufficient ideological diversity, it is arguably more difficult to retain and defend such academic freedom. When university ideologies are more homogeneous, there is less motivation to defend academic freedom of those with differing perspectives. Not defending academic freedom can in fact seem like an affirmation of the presumed values of the majority (Hooven, 2023; VanderWeele, 2023a), and educational leaders who do defend freedom and open exchange can themselves come under attack. This further reinforces a culture of self-censorship and ideological conformity, making the defense of academic freedom yet more difficult still. The process becomes self-reinforcing. Academic institutions are then themselves more likely to come under attack by opposing political parties, and there is less interest from the general public in defending them. Claims of the need to preserve academic freedom ring hollow, because many of these institutions have not defended it in day-to-day practice.

With greater ideological homogeneity, the defense of academic freedom can become more difficult still because progressive ideologies can sometimes be accompanied by notions of a subjective or relativistic understanding of truth; by an understanding of the university that emphasizes activism; by a priority of power over the pursuit of knowledge; and by a strategy of suppression or refusal to engage with certain ideas if they are contrary to a progressive agenda (Marcuse, 1965; Scruton, 2015). Open inquiry and the free exchange of ideas can seem like secondary values. Research studies suggest those with liberal ideologies tend to more strongly support priorities of social justice and student emotional well-being and those with conservative ideologies academic rigor and the advancement of knowledge (Geher et al., 2020; Rausch, 2023). With ever fewer conservative voices, and with a culture of enforced orthodoxies and censorship, it becomes difficult to challenge these forces, or for universities to self-correct. This damages the university’s pursuit of knowledge yet further. When progressive ideologies become dominant, it can thus become more difficult to maintain the very purposes of the university in the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge. One may of course instead view universities more as vehicles for accomplishing a particular vision of social progress (Fish, 2014), and this may indeed be part of the motivation for intentional efforts to suppress ideological and viewpoint diversity at universities (Marcuse, 1965). However, when the truth-seeking mission of the university is sufficiently displaced by a mission of political action, universities are more likely to be viewed, and treated, as such by opposing political parties, and by the general public as well (Jones, 2024).

Four years ago, Whittington (2021) in his discussion of matters of ideological diversity, provided a warning from the philosopher Wolff (1969) from decades prior on the potential dangers of the politicization of the academy: “the politicization of the university invites… the ever-present threat of pressure, censorship, and witch-hunting by conservative forces in society at large. The universities at present are sanctuaries for social critics who would find it very hard to gain a living elsewhere in society…. Where else are anarchists, socialists, and followers of other unpopular persuasions accorded titles, honors, and the absolute security of academic tenure? Let the university once declare that it is a political actor, and its faculty will be investigated, its charter revoked, and its tax-exempt status forthwith removed.”

Unfortunately, universities are now facing many of these threats today. Some of the demands being made of universities by the present administration concern a greater enforced political and ideological diversity. It is not, however, clear that such impositions would be effective long-term in addressing what are real issues and deficiencies in much of the modern academy. It would be preferable if changes and reform came from within. Doing so would require serious effort and a greater acknowledgement of the problem, along with a reckoning of the consequences of the lack of ideological diversity, rather than its denial and dismissal. It remains to be seen how universities will respond.

More needs to be done to counter what has been taking place with regard to the severe declines in ideological diversity, and to address what are arguably the accompanying deterioration of many aspects of university life itself. Academic institutions and leaders could, and arguably should, carry out the following measures. With regard to constructive engagement with viewpoint diversity: (1) University leaders could regularly emphasize the nature of the university as a truth-seeking institution, wherein this pursuit is facilitated by constructive engagement with those who may hold different views. (2) University leaders could model constructive engagement with viewpoint diversity by hosting events, dialogues, and debates with speakers committed to civil discourse addressing society’s most controversial issues. (3) Faculty could be encouraged to carry out greater engagement with viewpoint diversity using strategies of presenting arguments for and against a broader range of views in class, randomly assigning sides in debate, assigning essays exploring the understandings of those with opposing views, using “ideological Turing tests”, bringing in guest lecturers, amongst others. (4) Students could routinely be asked whether courses are adequately engaging with viewpoint diversity or are only providing one side of the debate on controversial and unsettled matters.

With regard to ensuring greater intellectual and ideological diversity among faculty: (1) Mandatory DEI statements in faculty hiring, that have often been used to ensure ideological conformity, could be discontinued. (2) University leaders and department chairs could assess, in school-wide or departmental reviews, which topics may be neglected in research and teaching due to ideological conformity and consider strategic hires in those areas. (3) University leaders could seek funding to establish endowed chairs in certain neglected research topics that may be of more interest to conservative scholars, while still carrying out open searches and hiring the best candidates. (4) New research centers could be created to facilitate research and faculty recruitment on neglected topics that might increase intellectual and ideological diversity.

With regard to better institutional structures to support intellectual and viewpoint diversity: (1) Annual reports on the ideological and political composition of faculty, staff, and students could be released at department-, school-, and institution-levels, with accompanying annual discussion considering whether the institution and its members are being well-served with regard to matters of intellectual diversity, or whether a lack of it is ultimately impeding the research, teaching, student mentorship, and service to society. (2) Local, state, and national political leaders, irrespective of party and institutional alignment, could be invited to present, dialogue, and debate. (3) Greater ideological diversity could be sought when filling positions for university administrators, admissions committees, and, where relevant, university governing boards.4 (4) Funding agencies and university donors can likewise play an important role by allocating funding to a more diverse range of research topics than is the case at present.

Different institutions may have different priorities and constraints and different approaches may be appropriate to each, but each of these strategies above might help. Certainly, further research on apportioning the relative weight of the various causes of the decline in ideological diversity might be valuable in gaining insight as to how to best address these matters. However, independent of the causes of the decline is the question of whether the increasingly extreme imbalance in ideological diversity is good for students, for research, and for broader society. Many of the proposals above have the potential to help address these matters regardless of what the historical causes of the decline might have been.

It will, however, likely take at least a generation for there to be real change, even if considerable efforts are made. Faculty turnover occurs slowly. But if efforts are not made, the problems are likely only to worsen. Given that liberal-to-conservative ratios are so high, and thus that the liberal and progressive professoriate will generally have the majority of decision-making power, it seems likely that the present state of affairs will remain, or that ratios will become yet more extreme, unless faculty themselves view the liberal-to-conservative ratios and their continuing rise as a problem to be taken seriously (Dent, 2014). While attempts at governmental enforcement might alter ratios slightly, or for some period of time, it is unclear that such action would be effective at altering the ideological balance long-term, or would genuinely contribute to the pursuit of knowledge. It would be better if faculty themselves would recognize this as an issue and attempt to take action to address it in ways that are consistent with preserving the academic standards and disciplinary autonomy of each field. As argued above, the very nature, and purposes, of the university will otherwise be more difficult to retain. The risks, moreover, are not only to scholarship, but the also the formation of students as well as to the future of conservative thought and leaders, to our capacity for civil discourse and finding common ground, and ultimately to the social fabric of our country.

While often met with skepticism (AAUP, 2003; Fish, 2004; Orzeck, 2012; Applebaum, 2020; Kammer, 2020; Dotson, 2020; Siraganian, 2025), the presence of intellectual and viewpoint diversity should, in many cases, be considered as strengths. Engagement with viewpoint diversity on disputed issues is a strength that ought to be sought out, and made use of, in the pursuit of knowledge. Such engagement can facilitate refinement of positions and arguments, a deeper understanding of one’s own perspectives and that of others, and potentially a finding of common ground. If knowledge has genuinely been established, viewpoint diversity will naturally lessen on its own, rather than by force. However, in other cases, engagement with intellectual, ideological, and viewpoint diversity can empower the scholarship and teaching of departments and universities. Such diversity can also increase capacity for civil discourse, and can provide a sense of welcome and belonging for all. Such diversity can further empower universities to better disseminate and communicate knowledge; to better understand the perspectives, experiences, and concerns of the whole of society; and to better serve the public good. Ultimately, a proper respect for and engagement with intellectual, ideological, and viewpoint diversity will be important in carrying out the university’s purposes in the generation, preservation, and transmission of knowledge.